Thinking of starting a housing investment llc?

Question

Thinking of starting llc where myself and multiple "partners" or "investors" contribute funds, and then purchase multi-unit housing, holding them for 5 to 10 year periods. My question is, to begin a venture like this, do I need any special licensing or legal representation (aside from forming LLC within state)?

Any advice or experienced wisdom would be greatly appreciated. It does not appear to be too risky if you select the right properties, but I am unsure on things such as;

A) Setting up early withdrawl penalties for investors
B) What I should charge as the person bringing this all together
C) Is this recommendable, or a formula for disaster

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

The preferred setup would be to have a corporation you own, rather than you personally, as the managing member; this could help protect your personal assets in the event of bankruptcy.

You don't need any "special representation" per se, but engaging an attorney with experience in forming LLCs for real estate investment is a big help. So is having an accountant with appropriate experience.

Withdrawals should be simply forbidden outright; if nothing else, they create a taxable event for every investor, which should be avoided. In your operating agreement, you can specify that investors only receive distributions from net income and in the event of property sale.

What you should charge is entirely up to you and your investors. You can pay yourself an asset management fee, a property management fee (if you will in fact manage the property), acquisition fees, and/or disposition fees. Additionally, profit-sharing arrangements (called "splits" in the industry lingo) can also be quite elaborate...